


Infinite Loop

by Mortissimo



Category: The Tribe (TV 1999)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-16
Updated: 2010-09-16
Packaged: 2017-10-11 21:29:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/117319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortissimo/pseuds/Mortissimo





	1. IF

I've written this code so many times it's likely that I know it by heart. It would be more practical, certainly, to write the program out once and save it, but just this once I allow my paranoia to spruces my sense of practicality. I'm not sure what the reaction of my faithful underlings would be to my little obsession, but I am in no way eager to find out. So I type out the entire program, over and over, only to delete it when I'm through. As a result, the program changes ever so slightly in its every incarnation, though the basic idea of it always remains the same. If only the obsession itself were so easily deleted, so easily altered. Generally, although hardly as a rule, the program does help me to further sublimate what feelings I do have for him. I know that he is not mine, and that I cannot have him, and the program seems to highlight this as often as it masks it. I have never once allowed my personal preferences and desires influence my actions, and this usually serves me well, however difficult it is becoming to seperate what must be done from what I know I have no hope of doing. Despite the trouble re-writing the program causes me, however, I do find it affords me a certain amount of welcome distraction between watching the city, monitoring the work in my lab, and meetings with the inane traitor May.

Her feelings for me are entirely understandable, even deliberately caused, but the girl nonetheless turns my stomach. Traitors are not to my taste, no matter how useful. My tastes run more to the loyal-unto-death types, even the verging-on-boring types. No, May does not appeal to me, nor does the insidious Java. They are each lowly and self-serving in their own snide way, and I spend as little time around both as I possibly can.

For years, I had thought myself to be impervious to any kind of affection for another living person. I sought solace only in my computers, and interacted only where it was necessary that I do so. It became apparent, quickly and painfully, that this was not the case after all, when I first joined the Technos. It seemed that even the sort of heart-grinding unrequited love that I had always so despised was not entirely beyond the scope of my emotions. When these new and dangerous variables were brought to light, I did the only thing I could do. I suppressed them completely.

The program that I am writing, and will most likely write again tomorrow, is not a complicated one for its kind. There is no dialogue, for instance, aside from my improvisation. There are no reality-warping effects so common in Paradise programs, no knights in shining armour, except metaphorically. There are only my sleeping quarters, him, and me. Logically, even the room itself is not a necessity, but I find that an empty void is not conductive to the sort of atmosphere it is my goal to create. There are, of course, minor components to the program apart from the stage and the actors, such as gravity, light, temperature, but with these I take the path of least resistance and copy code from other sources.

I spend what I realise to be an inordinate amount of time on his face. I like to be particularly meticulous with his expressions, especially. I have the contradictory way he can seem to be warm and incisive all at once down to a science, or perhaps an art. I know his scowl, his laugh, his unguarded smile all from memory. I have to be a bit more creative when it comes to how he must look caught up in the heat of passion, those soft lips of his parted just so, warm eyes half-closed in ecstasy. I've added and removed components to suit my mood over time. Sometimes, for instance, he looks up at me with a beatific sadness that, even though I know is nothing but code, still manages to catch my breath in my throat and make my heart skip a beat. Once, when I was feeling particularly dissatisfied with everything and particularly vicious, he threw his head back and just screamed for five of the longest seconds of my life. It was the worst sound I had ever heard out of my nightmares. Since then I've mostly maintained a certain template.

The program was intended to be nothing more than an outlet, nothing more than rough, animal sex. It was intended as a distraction to ease a hunger I refused to acknowledge and nothing more. We never once kissed, in the early months. He would only take me violently until his loop ended and the program terminated, leaving me with no less lust for him than before. It grew more intimate, however, as we began to regard one another more and more as companions rather than as mere colleagues. He has never been anything if not trusting. As I grew closer, in my own way, to the real one, his digital doppelganger grew warmer in reflection, becoming more like the man himself. The program became infinitely sweeter, more like lovemaking than mere physical contact. It became something to be savoured, rather than something to fill a necessity. It does take longer to create kissing and foreplay than it does to create raw sex, but this is one case in which I consider aesthetics above efficiency. As I have no basis for comparison, I can never know if my estimations regarding the taste of his mouth are correct. I nevertheless find the program to be a pleasant distraction, regardless of the level of work involved.

Subtly, day after day, I find my obsession grows, and the program with it. I can no longer pretend I feel only lust for Jay. Sometimes, in my program and in my dreams, I tell him that I love him. He has never once answered me.


	2. THEN

The mother of pearl-inlaid handle of the revolver is warm as I press it into his hands. He resists at first, taking the gun from me only as my own fingers slide towards the trigger. There's a sort of fear in his eyes, nearly overridden by his obvious confusion. It makes my heart beat in double-time, to see him look lost like that, but then again every sight of him makes my heart hammer against my ribs. It's a shock I haven't died of this yet. I smile, quick and predatory as always, and lift his hands, pressing the cold barrel of the ancient gun against the spot between my eyebrows where the "T" tattoo we both bear lies. I glance up from the gun as I hear his voice.

"Where did you get this?" It wasn't the question I had been expecting. Not why. Where. I give him another smile - mysterious - and shrug.

"I have my ways." I hold the smile a little longer, and no, he still doesn't understand. Poor Jay. I reach up, again, loving what I am sure will be the last brush of my fingers against his as I pull the hammer back with a loud click. I hope the rust-encrusted thing still works. I couldn't bring myself to touch it apart from buying it from the dubious street vendor some months ago, and now, shoving it into his hands.

I am dismayed when, a minute or two later, I am still alive.

"Do you want me to shoot you?" I swallow my first impulse, to snap back at him, clever and bitter, and choose to answer simply.

"Yes."

"Do you want me to kill you?" It was getting harder to resist. As smart as he was, Jay could be a perfect idiot sometimes. He had an unusual talent for stating the obvious.

"Yes." Clear and concise. I don't want to spend my last moments on Earth despising him, but if he keeps asking such stupid questions, I might do.

"Why?"There. That was the question I had been expecting, one I had an answer for.

"Don't you want to?" I pause, allowing him time to answer. He doesn't, and I continue. "Don't you loathe me?" Still more silence from his corner. I'm afraid to glance up and see what might be lurking in his eyes, and so I keep my eyes trained on the toes of his boots. "For enslaving the city, for trying to delete you, for deleting Ved?" The gun jerks and I flinch, against my will, realising for the first time that I've been trembling.

"Ved isn't dead." I glance up at him, out of surprise and reflex, and am surprised to find no hint of anger in his eyes, only something soft and warm that makes my stomach twist.

"How would you know that?" There's no point in keeping the bitterness, the long-ignored emotion out of my voice anymore, I tell myself. I'll be gone soon. Deleted. Dead. Splattered against the wall behind me.

"That guy you sent Lex to told him, that TaiSan and Ved aren't dead. That 'DELETED' doesn't mean anything more than their files being lost." I reach out to steady his arm as the gun begins to slide down my nose. I want this, I remind myself, ignoring the tiny bead of sweat trickling down my forehead and around the barrel. "You knew that. Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would you have believed me?" He thinks before he answers me in a nearly inaudible syllable.

"No."

"That's why. No point in trying something so futile, is there?" I attempt a flippant tone and fail utterly, disgusted at the catch in my own voice. As always, my words have a double meaning, one I can only hope will die with me before he can figure it out. I have always found hatred easier to stomach than pity. My hands are still wrapped around his wrists, trying to steady both of our hands and doing a terrible job of it. I squeeze the delicate bones slightly, my eyelashes brushing the inside of my glasses as my eyes slide halfway shut. I can't look at him any longer. I wish he'd kill me already.

"No." The same word, in a completely different tone. I think he was agreeing with me until I notice that I had spoken my wish aloud. I forget to stop him as he lowers his hands and drops the gun with a dull thud onto the floor. I'm still clutching his wrists, I notice, my knuckles turning white, and I can't bring myself to let go of him. He doesn't pull away from me. I'm too cynical, too scared to take this as a good sign. My pulse is racing, and I can feel his beginning to match its tempo.

"Don't you want me dead?" Dead. Not deleted. I notice my slip too late to correct it, my eyes trained on the contrast of my hands against his skin.

"No." I'd never imagined that one word could bring about such a reaction in me. He's said little else for the past few minutes, and yet he still manages to seem more eloquent than I am. I notice, not for the first time, that I've become something of a wreck, at least by my own standards. My heart has leapt into my throat and will allow passage of little else, including words and air. My breath is coming in short gasps, and as a result, I am becoming lightheaded, gravitating slowly but surely towards Jay. My trembling has, if anything, increased. I am a nervous, twitching, wreck.

"I do." I am acutely aware of the jagged scars running the length of my forearms that sometimes catch on the inside of my shirt when I pull it off at night. The words are out of my mouth before I notice them, and I don't care. Somehow I am still deluded enough to hope that he still might kill me.

He twists and pulls himself out of my grip. I have only a moment to mourn the loss of his warmth before I find myself in the center of it, the tiny metal teeth of the zipper that bisects his chest digging into my cheek. I bury my face against him before he can move away, which he does not do, and put my arms hesitantly around his waist. Miraculously, he does not object. The frame of my glasses is digging into the bridge of my nose. It's a little irritation that I am more than willing to endure for the sake of what is likely my only chance to be held by Jay.

"Mega." He won't let me pull away from his embrace, and I don't really want to, so I have to do some twisting to look up at him. He looks like a saint, almost, with that sad look on his face. It's an expression I've seen on him more than I would care to, and am shocked to realise that he is wearing it for my sake. I want very badly to kiss him, but I know that would be pushing my luck, and I only wait. His fingers brush my cheek, warm and gentle and wet. Am I bleeding? I look down at his hand, searching for a dark smear, and see nothing. His voice is little more than an awed whisper with a faint undercurrent of fear. I taste salt and am relieved that I don't have to meet his eyes as he speaks. "You're crying."


	3. DO

They say that before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. This is an outright lie. I only see two or three things of great importance- the death of my parents, when I thought Slade had left me to the proverbial wolves, and my twenty-first birthday, almost exactly a year ago. I take a moment to reflect on the irony of dying a few days before what would have been my birthday, and miss somebody saying something awfully profound. Not that it matters, I haven't been listening anyway.

I was sitting in the control room of what served as our third temporary base of operations that month. It was late at night and I was alone, which was not unusual for me. What was unusual for me was not working. I sat before a crowded desk in one bland, featureless room in a string of many, staring into the flickering light of the tiny candle I had managed, with no small difficulty, to find in the last town we passed through. I dug a little hole for it in the top of my standard-issue chocolate bar, and had been watching it melt down to nothing for the better part of an hour. Next to me was another item that had been difficult and, in the end, entirely unrewarding to procure. A thick glass bottle of vodka, barely opened. I had cracked the seal fifteen minutes ago and taken a tiny sip of the vile liquid. I couldn't bring myself to drink any more and set the bottle aside, resigning myself to another sober evening in what was likely to be, if that small sample was any indication, a lifetime of sobriety. I had just begun to wonder how much damage that tiny flame was likely to do to my fingertips if I touched it when I heard someone clear his throat embarassedly behind me. I turned around in the chair far too fast and nearly overbalanced, surprised by the sudden sound. Jay stood in the doorway, shifting his weight from foot to foot and staring at me. I guessed that he'd been standing there for a long time, and wondered if he'd heard me talking to myself earlier. I hoped not.

"Hello," I said, after a few moments of staring contest, in which it became apparent he wasn't going to initiate a conversation.

"Hi," he'd replied, a clear note of relief in his voice. Probably he thought I'd be angry or sad or... or drunk, more likely. I waved him over and he entered the room hesitantly, squinting in the darkness that the light of the tiny candle only served to accentuate. "I was making rounds before I locked up, and I saw a light in the control room." I heard a high-pitched whine running counterpoint to the soft breathing of the computers, and glanced down at his wrist gun. Sure enough, it was on, though only set to 'STUN'. He followed my gaze and blinked guiltily, powering it down. "Sorry."

"It's all right." I gave him a smile as best I could, a sign of friendship that had always come awkwardly for me. "Just don't shoot me." The joke went right over his head and he just nodded. I'd always found it amusing, that guileless sincerity of his, and it was then that I realised I found it to be endearing as well.

"So." His eyes moved to the candle and to the open bottle of vodka. I winced as I imagined what he must have been thinking. "Are you celebrating something or mourning something?" The question surprised and pleased me, and I think I must have given him a real smile.

"Celebrating. I'm twenty-one today." He nodded understandingly and smiled back at me. My heart gave a little jump and I coughed to cover it.

"Happy birthday, then, for another hour." Was it really eleven o'clock? I glanced down at my watch and was surprised to find that Jay was right. I must have been staring at the candle for longer than I'd thought. "I actually thought you were younger than that." I glanced up, startled. His voice was much nearer than I had expected it to be. He laughed, not unkindly, at my expression as he slid into the chair next to mine.

"Until today, I always have been." My second joke in as many minutes and probably also in as many weeks. I'd never been much of a joking person, as a rule, and it surprised me to tell them as much as it must have surprised Jay to hear them. I turned towards him, chair squeaking its protest against the linoleum, and leaned forward to see him better in the darkness. "How old are you?" I'd wondered but had never, until that moment, found a chance to ask. I guessed he was around twenty.

"Twenty-two." I nodded and sat back in my chair, satisfied with the verification of my suspicions. That put him at one year above me and two above our commander, Ram, whose age I only knew because I had been the one to enter his file into the Technos' database. This was right after I had joined up, before the long string of promotions that led to my position of third-in-command. We sat for a while in what I considered a comfortable silence, me watching him watch the candle burn its way towards a slow death. I had grown so used to staring at him and listening to nothing that I flinched when he finally spoke up. "Have you made a wish?" I must have been staring at him like he was mad, because he laughed and clarified for me, "on the candle, I mean. Have you made a birthday wish?" I hadn't done, and I told him as much. "Do so," he commanded in his best imitation of a real General, and I was torn between laughing and snapping a salute. I turned back to the candle instead, now barely more than a stub. I pursed my lips, aware that I looked like a perfect idiot, and hesitated. Lists of lofty ideals and unrealistic ambitions ran through my head before I finally settled on a wish, simple and yet entirely unattainable without some kind of supernatural interference. _I wish he'd kiss me._

The thought caught me by surprise and I sputtered as I blew the candle out, no doubt spraying it and the bar of chocolate with a good deal of spit. He had the decency not to laugh at me and I risked another glance at him in the near-perfect darkness. I could barely see the outline of his face and the the jagged mess of his hair, but it was enough to drive my heart rate up to an unhealthy level. I realised then, with a slightly unpleasant sense of futility and a far less unpleasant burst of warmth, that I had fallen in love with our commander's paramour.

The vision fades into a void without stars, without the light at the end of the tunnel I had been brought up to expect, without so much as a single, solitary angel, except for the one whose voice I hear as I slip inexorably into the darkness. Jay. My last thought is that this isn't such a bad way to die.

**Author's Note:**

> Super old. Oooold. I wrote this in high school. Actually I posted this in high school, I probably wrote this earlier. Old.


End file.
